


Whole World Is Watching

by cottontails



Category: Bleach
Genre: Character Study, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottontails/pseuds/cottontails
Summary: Anyone who saw past the mask suffered a quick, but brutal end.





	Whole World Is Watching

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for Bleach in about six years (actually, first time even thinking about bleach in six years for that matter). Not sure what got me back into it, but here we are. Just a short character study/origin story of one of my favourite characters. It's a little rushed, but it's been sat gathering dust for a few weeks now, so I might as well post it.

Yumichika was a man who loved attention.

When people were admiring his beauty, or silently judging him, they never truly saw _him_.

Which was just how he liked it.

When he first arrived in the Soul Society, he woke up in the western 80th District. He doesn’t remember exactly, but he can’t have been any older than fifteen when he’d died. If he wanted to survive, he had to learn to fight, and fast. Within ten years he knew enough to be able to defend himself against the very worst of humanity. Within fifty years he knew how to find weak spots in his opponents and exploit them. By the time a hundred years had passed, he’d made a name for himself.

Vicious.

Sadistic.

Merciless.

This kind of reputation brings enemies of course, which is how he learns the ever-important skill of hiding in plain sight.

Anyone who saw past the mask suffered a quick, but brutal end.

Until one.

In his defence, he still doesn’t know how much Ikkaku saw before he interrupted the three men who had him cornered.  He had already taken out two, and had the others in the palm of his hand.

And so, against his better judgement, Yumichika lets him live after he’d beaten the three morons to a pulp. He immediately pulls the thankful innocent card, hiding the bloody knife in his hand and hoping the man doesn’t think the two corpses further up the alley were his handiwork.

They run into each other again several weeks later in a bar in one of the rougher areas of the 72nd.

Ikkaku offers, rather drunkenly, to teach him how to defend himself.

Yumichika just rolls his eyes and pushes him off the stool.

The third time he sees him, it’s in the middle of another fight. Yumichika had been backed against a wall in the middle of an open street; already a bad start for a man who likes to keep his fights behind closed doors. Whether it’s conscious action, or over a hundred years of habit, he’s holding back. And he’s paying for it.

By the time the bald man intervenes, Yumichika has already suffered a nasty blow to his ribs and is bleeding heavily from a cut on his leg.

Ikkaku beats the guys, then drags a protesting Yumichika to a healer.  

Over the years that they grow closer, Yumichika never lets his mask slip, he never shows his true dark side.

But that never means he let it go.


End file.
